Heremakhonon Sparknotes

Identity, Colonization, and the Reality of the African Diaspora in Maryse Condé’s Heremakhonon. Heremakhonon by Maryse Condé is about a woman’s search for a stolen identity. It centers on Veronica Mercier, a Caribbean woman living in France, who goes on a quest for self development, realization, and culture in West Africa. But the way she encounters these findings is not as she planned. Veronica’s issue is threefold: she can’t connect with the people of West Africa, the culture of the new country is not what she expects it to be, and she cannot free herself of the struggles she came with. And all this is because colonization has tainted not only Veronica’s perspective, but also the reality of life in Africa. In Heremakhonon, Condé tells a story …show more content…

No, I’m not a trader. Not a missionary. Not even a tourist, though. Well, perhaps a tourist, but one of a new breed, searching for herself, not landscapes” (3). Veronica clarifies the intention behind her travels by first defining what she is not seeking. She is not a trader, who seeks to exchange one thing for another. Veronica recognizes the culture she has been brought up with and still claims that even as she is seeking more. She wants to only add to her cultural identity, not rid herself of anything that already belongs to her. As a Caribbean woman, Veronica has ties to Africa, but that does not encapsulate her entire identity; she is not seeking to erase her history. This is a common experience in the African diaspora. The transatlantic slave trade resulted in black people all over the world developing new cultures while still all having ancestral ties to the African continent. And a desire to seek out new cultures and explore what could have been, does not erase those new cultural traditions. Condé portrays this understanding through Veronica’s consistent references to her family and the influence they had, and still have, on